About Me…
NEW: A Collection of my Canadian Film & TV Essays...
I’ve been writing provocatively on-line since around 1998: about Canadian film/TV, Canadian culture & identity, as well as about comic books and graphic novels. But I also occasionally write fiction, with stories published in Strange Horizons, Daily SF, On Spec, the acclaimed Tesseracts anthology (the 19th volume), and other places over the years. I mention this because I’ve put out a few pulp story collections. And if you enjoy this blog, essays, reviews, and/or any of my websites, one way to show support would be to check out MY FICTION COLLECTIONS and, if they look interesting…buy one! It ain’t PATREON or anything, but it’s a way of showing you think what I’ve been doing is worth doing, and would help keep this blog and the websites up.
End of shameless plug.
Meta
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Ah…The Writer’s Life (and who is the real film and TV visionary?)
Just as a preamble to today’s post, I should point out what should be obvious — I know a fair bit about Canadian film & TV. And, equally, I know very little. It all kind of depends on your … Continue reading
The Canadian Identity Conundrum (Part 2)…from Seeing Things to King (and Johnny Depp, too!)
Continuing from my last post, and musing about the notion of how some Canadian movies and TV shows are desperate not to admit they are Canadian (the filmmakers practically peeing-in-their-pants scared of the occasional “eh?” slipping from an actor’s … Continue reading
The Canadian Identity Conundrum (Part 1)…from Arctic Air to How She Move
This post (the first of a “two parter”) will wrap up my recent series of posts looking at the use and depiction of culture and cultural identity in pop culture — and specifically Canadian movies and television. I’d say this … Continue reading
Passings… (and The Beachcombers lesson)
I was sort of in the middle of writing a series of posts delving into my (oft repeated) theme of Canadian identity and cultural references in Canadian movies and TV. But I’m interrupting this for a moment because of a … Continue reading
He Who “Makes” History…Gets to Define History
This is part of what’s turning into a kind of mini-series of posts looking at the concept of culture and cultural identity in Canadian pop culture…following on the heels of my previous post about “Canadianisms”. Stories are, in a … Continue reading
The Secret World of…Canadianisms
I’ll sometimes start drafting blog posts…that then start me down a different path…which then open up a new idea. So this post kind of arose out of a couple of pieces I’m working on, but I decided to post this … Continue reading
Bad Reviews – get over it
I was originally going to begin this post (about the way artists — and their fans — react sometimes vituperatively to negative reviews) by saying it was apropos of nothing much. Just a subject that had been bubbling in my … Continue reading
When Good Shows Go Bad (Sort of) — King and musings on the pitfalls of writing episodic TV
Because I can be a slow writer — often drafting a post, then sitting on it for a bit so I can go over it again — that gap between when I set out to write something and the time … Continue reading
Ten Golden Rules for Making Better Canadian Movies
In the American film All That Jazz, Roy Scheider plays a dance choreographer who, at one point, has promoted his dancer girl friend beyond her skill/talent level. As a result, he impatiently berates and humiliates her every time she stumbles. … Continue reading
